All:
After consulting with one of my co-workers, who brought up the possibility of a corrupt Master Boot Record due to the number of reinstalls of Linux, recommended using Windows98 to reset the MBR and reinstalling FC2. What I did is as follows:
1. Backed up user data (not /usr) to another partition. Also, I backed up /root/.mozilla to the backup partition. 2. Booted up a linux rescue disk and completely cleared out all of the partitions used by FC2 for an installation. Shutdown the system (unsuccessfully), so I had to hard powerdown the laptop.
3. Booted up a Windows98 boot disk which had FDISK on it.
4. Ran the FDISK /MBR command from the boot disk, not from any partition on my hard drive.
5. Shutdown the system (hard powerdown).
6. Booted up FC2 CD #1 which I had been using for all installations.
7. Installed FC2 with the Personal Computer/Laptop setup. I setup grub to be the boot management program and setup both Windows98 and FC2 to boot with FC2 as the default.
8. Shutdown FC2 and rebooted system (it worked.)
9. Edited the grub.conf file to disable acpi and enable apm.
10. Shutdown the system.
11. Started up system and did firstboot configuration.
12. Enjoying my system. I also backed it up to DVD before upgrading any packages.
Also, I decided to try and move the Mozilla files over to a known user and use root as an administrator....(this proved to be fun.)
In any case the problem is solved and might be used by others on the list.
James McKenzie
